Stone Monkey is born
from a rock by the ocean. His boastful, irrepressible nature soon causes
a stir on Earth as he makes himself king of all the monkeys. In search
of the secret of immortality, he learns martial arts and magic from the
Buddhist monk Subhuti, who renames him Sun Wu Kong (in Japanese, Son Goku),
meaning "Awakened to Emptiness." Back on his mountain, he finds
that demons have taken over his cave, but the skills he learned from Subhuti
enable him to throw them out. The Demon King's brothers trick him into
sneaking into the Dragon King's place and stealing a famous weapon, a
miraculous iron staff that can change size on command. Sun Wu Kong is
brought before the Jade Emperor for punishment. Wu Kong eats the Peaches
of Immortality and it chased from Heaven, only to lose a bet with Buddha.
Immured beneath a mountain for 500 years, he is saved by the Buddhist
Priest Xuanzang (aka Tripitaka), who invites Wu Kong to accompany him
on a pilgrimage to Gandhara in India, the modern Punjab. En route, the
pair meet a pig-changeling called Pigze and Monk Sand, a river spirit
who was once a Heavenly guard. After Wu Kong defeats them, they both join
the pilgrimage.

Possibly inspired
by traveler's garbled tales of the Hindu monkey-god Hanuman, Wu Cheng-En's
16th-century novel Xiyouji is the Chinese story most often animated
in Japan, perhaps because its trickster hero is more appealing to the
children's audience than the dour generals of GREAT CONQUEST or
the hotheaded revolutionaries of SUIKODEN. Noboru Ofuji's EARLY
ANIME Legend Of Son Goku (1926) used cutout figures animated
by stop-motion and was soon remade as the two-reel Son Goku (1928),
directed by Takahiro Ishikawa. However, Wu Kong's real push into the Japanese
market came through foreign influences. Amid the many propaganda WARTIME
ANIME, the Wan brothers' chinese cartoon Xiyouji (1941) was
screened in Japan under the title Princess Iron Fan, Featuring
one chapter from the legend, when Wu Kong and friends steal a magic fan
from Mount Inferno, the film inspired the 16-year-old Osamu Tezuka to
write his manga My Son Goku (1952), based on the same Mount Inferno
episodes.

Japan's animation
business was in ruins after the war, though Taiji Yabushita's New Adventures
of Hanuman (1957) was a 14-minute PR exercise funded with American
money. Hanuman was chosen over Wu Kong as a subject, presumbably because
the former Occupying Forces of Japan felt that a character whose main
aim in life is revolt against authority was not the most suitable folk
hero for the times; for similar reasons during the war, the Japanese sensor
had lopped 20 minutes off the running time of Princess Iron Fan.

Yabushita returned
to story in 1960 when he directed the anime remake of Tezuka's My Son
Goku. Retired Journey to the West (Saiyuki) in Japan and Alakazam
the Great in the U.S., Yabushita's film featured many similarities
to the Chinese film that inspired Tezuka. Not only did it keep to the
Mount Inferno scenes, but it also played up the moment when Wu Kong, Pigze,
and Monk Sand decided to cooperate for the first time and featured a final
aerial battle when the characters' feet are surrounded by airbrushed clouds.
Substantial name changes were made for the U.S. version, which is set
in "Majutsoland," ruled by His Majesty King Amo (Buddha), his
wife, Queen Amas, and his son, Prince Amat (Tripitaka). King Alakazam
(Wu Kong) tricks Merlin the magician (the Emperor of Heaven) into revealing
his secrets and fights past palace guardsman Hercules to confront King
Amo, who imprisons Alakazam until he is released to protect Prince Amat's
quest to India. Joined by Sir Quigley (Pigze) and reformed cannibal Lulipop
(Sandy), King Alakazam (Wu Kong) tricks Merlin the magician (the Emperor
of Heaven) into revealing his secret, is imprisoned by Hercules (a palace
guardsman, modeled on Popeye), and rehabilitated by a quest in the company
of Prince Amat. Joined by Sir Quigley (Pigze) and reformed cannibal Lulipop
(Sandy), Alakazam defeats King Grusome (ruler of Mount Inferno) and his
wife (Princess Iron Fan), is reunited with his beloved Dee Dee (a new
creation in the anime), and all live happily ever after. The film's Japanese
origins were further occluded by a big-name voice cast including Dodie
Stevens, Jonathan Winters, Arnold Stang, and Sterling Holloway, music
by Les Baxter, and the voice of Frankie Avalon whenever Alakazam sang.

Back in Japan, the
experience of making the film further inspired Tezuka to consider repeating
the process for TV, indirectly giving birth to ASTRO BOY and the
inevitable TV remake of the Wu Kong story, Goku's Great Adventure (1967,
Goku no Daiboken). The first three episodes of this series stay
close to the legend, but it soon becomes a gag free-for-all filled with
surrealistic and adult humor. Viewers were puzzled or irate; the PTA complained
about the level of bad language and the series ended after 39 episodes
instead of intended 52.

Leiji Matsumoto's
Starzingers (1978) was a science-fiction version that moved the
events into outer space; redubbed as SPACEKETEERS, it was shown
in the U.S. alongside the other anime in the FORCE FIVE series.
The next incarnation was the live-action series Monkey (1979),
featuring scripts from jAPANESE FOLK TALES - scenarist Isao Okishima.
The music was from the group Godiego, was also provided the theme to Matsumoto's
GALAXY EXPRESS 999 - their mournful song about Son Goku's final
destination became a hit in its own right, in turn inspiring the otherwise
unrelated anime GANDHARA. The live-action series became well-known
in the U.K and Australia through the BBC dub, supervised by future Manga
Entertainment voice director Michael Bakewell, but the period following
it produced only one TV movie in Japan, Gisaburo Sugii and Hideo Takayashiki's
anime musical Son Goku Flies the Silk Road (1982), and a number
of SF pastiches, including DRAGON BALL (1986), the DORAEMON
movie Parallel Journey to the West (1988), and Buichi Terasawa's
GOKU: MID-NIGHTEYE (1989), Even HELLO KITTY - creator
Sanrio got into the act with Raccoon Fun Journey to the West (1991,
Pokopon no Yukai Saiyuki). At the close of the 20th century, the
character reappeared in several new incarnations, including the very
loose adaptation ONE PIECE. Another series, Monkey Magic
(1999), was released on video and then recommissioned for TV. Based on
a computer game, the 13-episode series retells the early part of the legend
relatively faithfully, with a hero now named Kongo, though the actual
journey to the west only begins in the penultimate episode. The
same year saw a new Saiyuki (a pun on the characters for Chronicle
of Total Fun, aka Paradise Raiders), a two-part video based
on kazuya minekura's G-Fantasy manga that also graduated to a full-fledged
50-episode TV series. The Minekura Saiyuki is set long after the
evil demon Gyumao is buried by the god of Heaven. After magic and science
are mixed by parties unknown, Gyumao is brought back, and the monk Genjo
Sanzo, accompanied by the usual suspects in updated form, is charged with
heading west to determine the cause of the trouble.